Enlargement's growing pains

EU commissioner Olli Rehn is battling hard to convince aspiring members that European enlargement is on course despite the constitutional debacle and last week's Brussels summit fracas.

But his convictions fly in the face of uncomfortable political facts. For Europe, bigger is no longer necessarily better.

"Enlargement was a survivor of the summit, though it was a close call," Mr Rehn declared this week. Romania and Bulgaria would be admitted as planned in 2007 if all entry criteria were met, he said. Talks with Turkey should also begin on time in October.

Mr Rehn said it would be "irresponsible to disrupt a valuable process".

"Sticking to one's word is a basic [EU] value," he said.

As EU enlargement chief, Mr Rehn has a job to do. But he risks glossing over the anti-enlargement verdict implicit in the French and Dutch no votes on the constitution.

According to a minister who attended the Brussels summit, "enlargement" has become a dirty word. A vaguer formulation concerning future "European perspectives" is now preferred.

Key governments have concluded that voters were, in part, registering disapproval of last year's "big bang" admission of 10 poorer, mostly east European countries, the minister said.

Despite Mr Rehn's best efforts, two new political realities appear unavoidable. One is that candidate countries - Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Turkey - will face closer scrutiny.

Their record on human rights, judicial and penal reform, corruption and media freedom "will be looked at with a more powerful magnifying glass", said Franco Frattini, the EU's justice and security commissioner.

Turkey faces an even rougher ride. Ankara must also tackle disputes concerning Cyprus and Armenia. And Paris confirmed this week that Turkey could be blackballed in a one-off French referendum.

The former commission president Romano Prodi said yesterday that "the conditions are no longer there for Turkey's entry in the short or medium term".

All these countries' hopes are also linked to agreement on a long-term EU budget.

The other harsh post-constitution reality is that Serbia-Montenegro, Bosnia, Macedonia and Albania can now expect a more protracted application process - with no guarantee of success.

That realisation has set alarm bells ringing across the region, with concern focusing on still simmering Kosovo. "Europe cannot be stable without the Balkans," warned Vlado Buckovski, Macedonia's prime minister.

The prospect of a neglected Balkan region sliding back into chaos led a group of Europe's elder statesmen, including Carl Bildt and Germany's former president Richard von Weizsäcker to issued a joint appeal last week: "Europe can survive the crisis with its constitution. "What Europe cannot survive is a new Srebrenica."

A backlash born of disappointed hopes is a possibility.

Mihai-Razvan Ungureanu, Romania's foreign minister, said this week that he expected the EU to honour its agreement to admit his country, although a one-year delay until 2008 was possible.

But dishing the Balkans could be "disastrous", he said.

Erhard Busek, special coordinator of south-east Europe's stability pact, said he was worried about a lack of leadership on enlargement.

"The Balkan countries have to learn to depend on themselves, to learn self-responsibility," he said. "But they must stay on the EU agenda. There's no alternative."